‘In the corner of the door lintel a cobweb shone like silver. Like me the spider works through instinct. It just gets up and gets on with the job without thought. Every so often it turns out something perfect.’ On a wind lashed coast in the far north a group of men assemble on a construction site. The Ness and Struie Drainage Project will dominate their lives for the next few months when they will toil through the daylight hours and into the night, endure hardship and conflict, survive or, perhaps, not survive. Within the compound and fencelines a new, temporary world will form, bounded by sea, mountains and sky. Site Works is the story of the men and their work, transients creating something permanent and greater than they know.
Editorial Reviews
Review
. . . a world that fiction forgot. The guys in this novel are building a drainage facility in the north of Scotland in winter, and clinging to what small comforts they have – alcohol, illicit liaisons with married women, even horror comics – to make it bearable. Davidson has come up with an incredibly vivid depiction of a temporary community of transient workers, which is almost too authentic for comfort. –Alastair Mabbott in The Herald
. . . an enthralling, vivid novel set here in out midst. Of course the author asserts that his names, places, events etc are fictional. But don t be fooled: this is a real life engineering project and these are the men and their machines who made it happen and Robert Davidson is their brilliant chronicler. In his words the technical and the mundane, the endless body-destroying hard graft, the awfulness of the Highland winter weather, all come together to create something fine. –Charles Gorer in The Northern Times
Poetic passages and concise pen portraits are woven into an enlightening tale which lifts the lid on a world of which few are aware. –Ross-shire Journal
In this book, Davidson has given voice to a whole class of people who are treated simply as figures on a balance sheet by economists, or peripheral stereotypes by other novelists. Site Works deserves to be read by the very men to whose lives it gives such beautiful attention. –Alan Bissett
Poetic passages and concise pen portraits are woven into an enlightening tale which lifts the lid on a world of which few are aware. –Ross-shire Journal
About the Author
Robert Davidson is a professional writer and editor based in Highland Scotland. He is the founder and managing director of Sandstone Press and the author, co-author, and editor of many books as well as a published poet, lyricist and libretist. Before altering his life’s course he worked for over thirty years (having left education early) as a civil engineer. It is thi sexperience that informs Site Works. Books written by Robert Davidson have been short listed for the Saltire Society, Scottish Arts Council, and Boardman Tasker Awards.
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